The news going around about the situation of some Africans in Libya is alarming. I have read the story over and over again and i could not fathom the reality before me.
Slave trade was practiced by colonial masters during the colonial era. Many Africans were forcefully captured, tortured and forced to do hard labour. Most of these captives were raped and some were treated like animals.
While in school, my lecturer opened my eyes to the soldiers chants 'eesobey' as pronounced by the soldiers during my NYSC days. But they are actually pronouncing it wrongly.
According to Professor Princewill Alozie, the word is derogatory and originated by the colonial masters. He argued that the normal and proper words are: APES OBEY! This, he argued, was chanted by colonial masters to demoralized the Africans by simply relegating them to the status of lower animals.
So they were called apes and were told to obey the command of their masters who felt they were superior animals.
If you read the slave trade story very well, you will understand that the colonial masters were able to oppressed the Africans with their sophisticated weapons while the African were holding arrows and local guns.
The slave story made it clearer to me that Africans have been their own problems right from inception. Most of the atrocities committed then were possible because the African leaders supported them!
You can read it again to see that the major leaders in Africa then joined in giving out their people in return for mirror or whatever things they considered valuables then.
No one would have thought their would be slave trade in 21st Century! It is still shocking to me and almost unbelievable even after reading the story and watching the video.
I can't believe fellow Africans could sell their people for 200-500$! No, it is shocking!
It is possible to blame it on the government because the country is not 'good' but you need to see those people for what they are.
Are you aware of the fact that 500,00 are among the valuables collected from these fellow Africans? You can imagine what a 500,ooo naira can do in this part of the world but some people chose to risk their lives with it by looking for what is not lost.
I work in the maritime sector and i see news about death on the Mediterranean Sea every day. 26 females were recently raped and killed in Italy.
I still don't know why people risk so much just to enter Europe. These people risk the lives of their little kids. It would have been better if they travel the desert or Mediterranean Sea alone.
Do they even have a particular job to do their, do they have any family member there? They just think Europe is the only place to make it.
Like every Nigerian, i condemn in totality the sale of fellow human beings for whatever value. It is purely inhuman to sell fellow Africans in an African country.
Nigerians should stop risking their lives and that of their children by crossing the desert and the Mediterranean Sea just because they thought their is one money in Europe. Their is no such money their. There are poor people in Europe, they have ghetto, they have homeless people on their streets too!
